Lessons from My Mother (#1 Swimming Lessons)

           The summer I turned 12, my mother took me to the pool for swimming lessons. On the third week, while I was kicking my legs and trying to stay afloat, my instructor picked me up and suddenly threw me into the middle of the pool. I swallowed a lungful of water and discovered for myself that fear indeed tasted bitter. That day, I told my mother I wasn’t going back to the pool. I was half-expecting her to march up to the instructor and blame him for trying to drown her daughter. But to my indignant cries of “I could’ve drowned!” my mother just smiled and said, “That’s how you learn to swim, sweetie.” The next day, she took me back to the swimming pool and I went back to kicking my legs in water.

            Many years later, in the summers that followed, I came to realize that it was not only my instructor who liked to catch me unawares and throw me into the deep end. Life also had a habit of doing that. At times, when I am focusing on kicking my legs and trying to breathe above water, Life would grab me by the waist and “Splash!” I would swallow mouthfuls of disappointments. My legs would get all caught up in a tangle of “what ifs” and the smell of failures would be stronger than the smell of chlorine from the pool that summer. I still tend to complain how I could’ve drowned. Then, I remember that summer and my mother. And I’m still scared of drowning but I learned that if you let the fear of drowning win, you will never learn how to swim. So, I will continue to try with everything I have in me to stay afloat because there’s no way in hell I’m going down without a fight.

           And for all the times my mother asks me, "How are you doing?" I will say, "Mother dearest, don’t you worry. I'm still alive and kicking. Just the way you taught me to be."